Super-quick computers and advanced mathematic formulas have largely taken over trading on the financial markets from human beings: algorithms, which seem to have a life of their own. The Wall Street Code, 2013
Haim Bodek is one such algorithm developer. After finding some strange wrongdoings he set out on a personal crusade against this elusive system. ibid.
Qants: mathematicians and physicists who are responsible for a technological revolution. ibid.
In the 90s the Wall Street establishment realise it is falling behind in the technological revolution. ibid.
70% of trading now being automated, and 50% taking place within milliseconds. What’s called High Frequency Trading or HFT. ibid.
‘You just assume you’re being ripped off, unless you’re the one doing the ripping off.’ ibid. Qant
Exchanges have changed from places where companies attracted investors to data centres where wars are waged between algorithms that trade with each other at the speed of light. A hidden world. ibid.
‘Were we making the markets a better place?’ ibid.
‘The ISCC has not taken action.’ ibid.
Enron execs sell $1 billion in stock before bankruptcy. The 2000s: The Decade We Saw It All, National Geographic 2017
The Wolves of Wall Street: high-fliers who work hard, and sometimes play harder. Across town dealers are cashing in. Drugs Inc s7e1: The Real Wolves of Wall Street, National Geographic 2015
‘The riskiest thing is delivery.’ ibid. dealer
Cocaine is one of the most popular drugs among the wolves of Wall Street. But another home-grown drug prescribed by doctors is taking the street by storm … Adderall is a prescription-only medication … I Adderall pill =$25; 120 pills = $3,000. ibid.
Paul Wilmott: often described as the smartest quant in the world. Mathematician and an author of a large number of textbooks. A quant guru who has been warning us about the danger of a mathematician-led market meltdown for years. Quants: The Alchemists of Wall Street, VPRO 2010
The Thailand Stock Exchange in Bangkok: investors study the board as the Asia financial crisis deepens. Inside the lobby of the exchange a distraught man now bankrupt holds a gun to his neck. Banned from Television, 1998
83% of all stocks are owned by 1% of the population. Peter Joseph, interview Abby Martin, The Empire Files: Abolishing Capitalism, 2017
It’s a cancerous disease. ibid.
Wall Street: there is nothing positive that this institution does. ibid.
Chilean mining shares have boomed considerably since General Pinochet introduced slave labour. The New Statesman s2e4: The Haltemprice Bunker, Stephen Fry to B’stard, ITV 1990
If you’re Wall Street, you’re a bigger fucking crook than I could ever be. Baby Driver 2017 starring Ansel Elgort & Kevin Spacey & Lily James & Jon Hamm & Eliza Gonzalez & Jamie Foxx & Jon Bernthal & Flea & Lanny Joon & C J Jones & Sky Ferreira et al, director Edgar Wright, Bats
What is capitalism? Is it an economic system? Or is it an apparatus we can use to make more money for ourselves and take more money from others? The China Hustle, opening commentary, 2018
Before the dust had settled on the economic collapse in 2008, Wall Street had already figured out a new way to package garbage as gold: they were engineering an enormous fraud that spanned the globe, but this time the lies at the centre of the scam were 100% legal; this time the crime was based in China. ibid.
Roth wasn’t the only bank cashing in on the China boom. ibid.
Between 2006 and 2012 over 400 Chinese companies listed on US markets; 80% of them were reverse mergers. ibid.
All of the people we think of as gatekeepers – the lawyers, the bankers, the auditors, and people make good money to ensure the markets are clean – weren’t doing anything of the sort. They simply processed the necessary parperwork, took their fees and moved on. ibid.
The dark side of finance – short selling. ibid.
Hundreds of millions of dollars of Chinese reverse mergers that he’d sold were frauds. ibid.
For over 150 years, the Chicago trading floors have been home to the most primal method of buying and selling. In 1997 more than 10,000 people traded on the floors. Later that year, computer trading emerged. Today, about 10% remain. Floored, 2009
‘Chicago: it’s physical’ … ‘You saw the worst in everyone’ … ‘The physicality in the pit was ridiculous’ … ibid.
Futures Trading 101: ‘for buyers and sellers to manage the risk against unpredictable price fluctuations.’ ibid.
Many traders trade with their own money. ibid.
‘There’s a gambling mentality to what we do down there.’ ibid. Trader
‘95% now of all global markets are electronic.’ ibid. Linda Raschke, LBR Group
What followed was the longest economic expansion and largest stock market boom in US history. Money for Nothing: Inside the Federal Reserve, 2013
The Trouble with Bubbles: Japan was a cautionary tale of what can happen when stock market real estate bubbles explode in a frenzy of speculation, as they did in Tokyo in the 1980s. ibid.
2008: and the world’s financial markets were going down. It was the worst collapse since the Great Depression … At the same time most were running scared of the market, a small group of opportunists got very rich, pumping and dumping worthless stock on an unsuspecting public. It wasn’t exactly a new racket. The Fifth Estate: Stock Frauds, Dan & Carol Get Busted, CBC 2016
Dan and Carol … Their success attracted the sharks … Dan and Carol got busted. ibid.
It’s called the Pump and Dump. ibid.
Scandal in the City: we investigate the man who gambled billions and lost. The industry knew Neil Woodford was in trouble but no-one told investors. We also reveal how another money man was doing secret deals on the side. As hundreds of thousands count the cost of the Woodford scandal, we confront the man himself. Panorama: Can You Trust the Billion Pound Investors? Richard Bilton investigates, BBC 2019
That new wave of investors: those taking their own risks on the stock market. ibid.
Neil Woodford’s new fund has been a disaster. It’s lost billions. ibid.
Kent County Council tried and failed to take its money back: £260 million of pension cash. ibid.
More than 300,000 investors have their money trapped. ibid.
Some fund managers seem to be able to do as they please. ibid.
Another fund manager breaking rules designed to protect investors: his name is Mark Denning. He’s worked at one of the biggest investment companies in the world for 36 years: Capital Group manages almost $2 trillion of assets … ibid.
So the Fed has revived the stock market downturn. It’s come up, and it said is, ‘Folks, you can bail out the stock market, give us your junk bonds.’ That’s sort of like the Statue of Liberty for wealthy people. Give us your stocks. Sell your bonds. We’ll buy them all up at Federal Reserve expense and will purchase them. And we’ll also do our own forward buying to manipulate the stock market by promising to buy our stock, so the high price in the forward market. So that’s going to create a speculative demand for stock. So the speculative demand for stocks by Federal Reserve manipulation and the actual flow of funding money into the stock market from the government has been pushing it back up, giving the illusion of prosperity, at least for the 10 percent. Nakedcapitalism online, cited the Keiser Report